


Disappear

by ahbonjour



Series: Adventure Voodoo [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Gratuitous French, Grief, Spoilers, and i need more characterization that the game didn't provide, i didn't like how sole had no reaction outside the institute, post institute visit, talking about nate, talking about shaun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5769355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahbonjour/pseuds/ahbonjour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He’s dead,” Josie said, before she even realized she was saying it. She clutched at his arm too hard. “He’s dead.”<br/>Hancock nodded like he already knew. “Yeah.”<br/>His black eyes were the last things she saw before plunging back into darkness.</p><p>Post-Institute visit, the sole survivor of Vault 111 deals with the fact that she has failed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disappear

* * *

_“Who knows,” she said, smiling as the beams of teleporting energy shot around her body, “maybe he’s been looking for me, too.”_

* * *

Josie started crying as soon as she walked out of the room, but didn’t start truly sobbing, wildly and in earnest, until she reached the second elevator. It fell, this gorgeous cylinder, down past the throngs of people—how many were people and how many were synths?—watching her come undone against the glass wall, dirty and black-clothed and so unlike everything here. This was her son’s family now. The baby boy she’d carried for nine months inside her body and five months outside of it, who she’d fantasized about raising in her idyllic home with her idyllic Nate, now he was kin only to these strangers.

She’d told him no. She couldn’t be part of this. And before she could say anything else he told her to leave, get out, never see him again.

She stumbled out of the elevator and to the teleportation pod, sucked down into beams and particles until she was nothing.

When she rematerialized on the other side she screamed, in pain and anguish at the unforgiving Commonwealth sky. She wanted to run back to the vault, freeze herself beside her husband and become nothing again, but she barely managed to walk two steps to the edge of the home foundation they’d built the teleporter on before she collapsed and vomited into the grass, concrete scraping her palms, undigested Sugar Bombs scraping her throat.

“Jesus,” she heard Sturgis say.

She felt a shadow drop down beside her, rough hands touch her shoulders and hold back her hair. “Just get it out,” Hancock’s rough voice said, surprisingly gentle. “Better to get it out—”

“He’s dead,” she said, before she even realized she was saying it. She clutched at his arm too hard. “He’s dead.”

He nodded like he already knew. “Yeah.”

His black eyes were the last things she saw before plunging back into darkness.

* * *

_Josie swept away the last of the debris on the foundation of what used to be Ms. Able’s home. It was the perfect spot for the teleporter—wide and flat and easy to build on. “I’m worried he won’t recognize me. You know?” she said, walking to the middle of the dirty white concrete. “I mean, he’s ten. I missed ten years of my son’s life. What kind of a mother am I?” A pause, a short laugh. “I guess I’m a mom-sicle.” The laugh turned a little melancholy. “Nate would have loved that.” She went silent, then scuffed her feet on the ground. “B-but hey! He’s got a bed in the new house, now. I’ve found him some toys. It’s not much, but…it’s our home. We can have a home again. Maybe…maybe we can even move back into the house. Maybe. And he’ll love having a puppy to play with!”_

_Dogmeat barked, pushing his head under her hand for a scratch._

* * *

The first person to come to her was Dogmeat. As soon as she hit the ground he was there, whining and dancing at Hancock’s feet as he shook her and then rolled her over and lifted her dead weight in his arms. He barked, anxious as Hancock began trudging towards the two-story shack she’d built.

“Chill out, mutt,” he murmured, hiking Josie up. “She’s fine, she’s just tired.” He grunted as he adjusted her dead weight. “Geez, kid, what have they been feeding you?”

Still, Dogmeat whined again and trotted after him, following him as he grunted up the stairs to the second floor and deposited her in bed. He rolled her on her side and padded her back with pillows—no telling what they’d put in her to make her throw up like that. She coughed another heartbreaking sob, curling into the fetal position as more tears seeped from her. Hancock dragged a chair over and plopped down in it, tipping his hat forward tiredly.

Dogmeat leapt up onto the bed and curled around her feet, loyal to the end.

* * *

_“What’s that one?”_

_“Polaris,” Curie replied perfunctorily. She floated next to Josie’s sleeping bag, her eyes swiveled up to look at the stars. “It is also called the north star. It is the brightest star in Ursa Minor, the little bear.”_

_“And that one?”_

_“Canis Major. One of the brightest stars in the galaxy! She is a red giant.”_

_Josie rolled over to look at her. “How do you know so much about stars?”_

_“Monsieur Collins taught me much of what I know. He always had a fondness for stars.” She floated a little higher, the bright light of Canis Major reflected across her glass eyes. “I thought at the time that it was foolish. Now…I wish I had learned more while I could.”_

_“I’m sorry, Curie.”_

_“Monsieur Collins always said I was like a star. But I do not know how he meant. Because I am white? Because I am round? Because I float? I never knew. I wish I understood poetry.” She fell silent for a long moment, and Josie wondered if she had shut down, until— “Madame?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Can I ask a favor of you?”_

* * *

“You should have fetched me immediately!” Curie practically screeched, rolling Josie onto her back and peeling back her eyelid.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before!” Hancock shouted back, instantly defensive. “Drugs wear off, you just have to give it time—”

“Vous êtes un idiot!” Curie snarled, swatting viciously at him even as she continued her inspection of Josie’s extremities. “She went to the Institute! You don’t know what kinds of things they have there—”

“You don’t either!”

“I know more than you do, you idiot man!” She pressed her fingers to Josie’s wrist. “Her heart is beating. Blood pressure doesn’t feel too terrible.”

“Irregularly?”

“Slowly. Not fast. And her breathing is—”

“Normal?”

Curie deflated slightly. “Normal. Oui. So, why is she not…?” She moved her hand away, leaning back so she could get a decent look at Josie. She suddenly looked small. “Madame?”

Hancock sighed, stepped back, rubbed the bridge of his non-nose. “She’s been like this for hours.”

“What…happened? In there?”

“Her son is dead.”

Curie gasped delicately, shifted to sit on the side of the mattress. “Ah non. I know what this is.” She touched Josie’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Madame. I know…I know how this is.”

Josie did not respond.

* * *

_“Wow,” Preston breathed, a small, hopeful smile beginning in the corners of his mouth. “Wow.”_

_“What?”_

_“We did it.”_

_Josie looked over from where she was already plotting crop growth. “Of course we did it.”_

_“You don’t understand,” Preston insisted, stepping around the tiny shells of mirelurk hatchlings to meet her, take her hands in his for proof that this was real. “We’ve been trying so hard to rebuild the Minutemen. And now you—we did it! We took the Castle!”_

_Josie laughed and withdrew her hands. “Come on, Preston, would I have you follow your general into battle if there was even the slightest chance of defeat?”_

_“I suppose not,” he replied, laughing as well. He tipped his hat back, looking at the winter sky. “I knew you were the right choice. I just knew it.”_

* * *

“This is a message for, um—well,” Preston started, drumming his fingertips on the table beside the ham radio. Codsworth hovered nearby. “Any friends of Josie Fawcett, really.”

Miles away, MacCready tilted his head towards the radio, eyes widening.

“Joseph MacCready, Piper, um, whatever your last name is.”

“Wright,” Codsworth corrected gently.

Piper jerked out of her dreaming half-sleep against the press at the sound of her name. Nat was already turning up the volume.

“Valentine. Deacon.”

“Hey, you’re on the radio!” Drummer Boy said, but Deacon was too busy packing a bag to listen.

“Whoever else considers Josie a friend. You know who you are. You know where to find us. She’s—not in doing great.” Preston paused for a moment, glanced back at Codsworth with a small, wry smile. “If you don’t come, I’m sending Strong after you. That’s all. This message repeats.”

* * *

_“You know the milk of human kindness isn’t real, right?”_

_Strong was tearing into a radstag raw, blood splattering across the dirt and his mouth. “Hrm?”_

_Josie remained constantly fascinated by how he ate, brutal like the sharks she’d seen in the aquarium when she was a child, food half sustenance and half a vicious game. “There’s not an actual milk of human kindness,” Josie replied, her words not slowing his feast. “You know that, right?”_

_Strong smiled, as close to a smile as he could come, a stretch of his mouth to show his teeth (she’d watched him mimic her). “Silly human,” he said patiently, snapping off the radstag’s femur, “they just not tell you where it is.”_

_“No, Strong, it’s a metaphor—”_

_“That why you need me to protect you!” he shouted; a startled flock of birds squawked and flew off. “You never drink milk, you not strong like me!”_

_Josie laughed and began cutting off a slice of radstag that she’d cook later._

* * *

“You think they come?” Strong asked from where he sat cross-legged under the carport.

Preston sighed and pushed back from the table, having fiddled enough with the radio to get the message to repeat again and again. “I think a lot of them will. Most of us are already here. And I’d be surprised if Piper wasn’t already booking it out of the city. She’ll drag Valentine with her.” He stepped outside, looking at the star-specked sky. “Cait, I don’t know. Deacon, I don’t know. MacCready, even. It’s hard to call.”

They could see Curie stopping beside Josie in her home across the way, the small shifting movement of Hancock in the dark. Codsworth hadn’t moved from his post at the bridge. “They come,” Strong said sagely, before raising his voice to a roar. “They come or I come for them!”

“That’s right.”

Strong was silent for a second, knocking the tips of his toes together. “She okay?”

“I don’t know, big guy. I don’t know.”

* * *

_Josie leaned back on the heels of her hands, her legs dangling off the concrete block that held the elevator down to 111. Below her stretched dry Commonwealth grass, the footbridge to Sanctuary. Somewhere nearby a bloatfly was buzzing lazily, but it wasn’t bothering her so she didn’t bother it._

_Behind her, Codsworth said, “Why did you take me there?”_

_“I wanted you to see,” Josie replied distantly, fiddling with the ice cold wedding ring slowly warming in her palm. “I wanted you to know that…what happened, what we went through, I wish…I don’t know.”_

_“I didn’t want to see that.”_

_“I know. I didn’t, either. But I had to.” She slipped the ring onto her other hand—it was too big and she had to hold it on. “We’re so close to finding Shaun. I had to see him again, apologize for my failings, apologize to you.” She laughed hollowly. “You were so excited to see me again. You thought we could find him. And he’s not here anymore—but you are.” She twisted back to look at him. “Codsworth.”_

_“Yes, mum?”_

_“Thank you for never leaving. You’re…” she swiped at tears with the back of her hand as she clambered up and over to him. “You’re the best family I’ve got.”_

_“Not to worry, mum,” Codsworth said as she gave him the best attempt at a hug she could. “We’ll find Shaun, and then everything will be back to normal. You’ll see.”_

* * *

“Where’s Garvey?!” Piper shouted, practically running into Sanctuary, dragging Valentine by the sleeve. “Preston! You have a cryptic-ass message to explain!”

“Ow! Piper, let go!”

“Miss Wright! Mister Valentine!” Codsworth chirped from where he waited by the bridge. Piper stopped short at the sight of him—he was twitching and one of his eyes kept swiveling. “It’s such a pleasure to see you! Are you here for Miss Josie?”

“Whoa,” Piper said, drawing back a little involuntarily. “You okay, Codsworth?”

Sensing an opportunity, Nick withdrew his arm and straightened his coat. “Yeah, you’re not looking too good.”

“Am I not? I hardly noticed,” Codsworth replied, a definite edge to his voice. “I assume you heard Mister Garvey’s radio message?”

Whatever was in Valentine’s chest that acted as a heart lurched. “Yeah, we did. Whaddaya  mean, not doing great? Is she hurt?”

Codsworth lowered his voice and leaned forward. “She returned from the Institute. She’s not hurt physically, as far as Curie or I can tell. But she won’t get out of bed. All we know is that Shaun,” his voice caught here and his eyestalk stopped swiveling and he had to take a second before continuing, “Shaun is dead.”

“Oh no,” Piper breathed. “Codsworth, I’m so sorry.”

Codsworth imitated the sound of an inhale. “It’s perfectly fine,” he said, though it was obvious it perfectly wasn’t. “My concern now is for the missus. She emerged from the Institute yesterday, relayed the information that Shaun was…gone, vomited, and fainted.”

“Did they drug her?”

“That was my initial thought as well, but Curie checked her and it all came up negative. She awoke and simply won’t move. She just—lies there. Staring at the ceiling.” It was amazing how much concern could shine through a being with no facial expressions. “I suggested we rally the troops, as it were, which Mister Garvey thought was a capital idea.”

“No offense, Codsworth,” Nick said, withdrawing a cigarette from his pack, “but if that’s all, I might hang back. I’m not great with the whole grieving family bit. My job comes before that.”

“Ass,” Piper hissed.

“But that’s precisely my point, Mister Valentine,” Codsworth said with an earnest forward-float. “With Shaun gone, Miss Josie has no true biological family left. The only family she has remaining is us.” He tipped back a little, his bad eye struggling to focus. “She’s been there for all of us, isn’t it time we were there for her?”

Nick smirked. “Geez, how long were you rehearsing that?”

* * *

_“So what do you think of him, Blue?”_

_“What do I think? You know him better, tell me what you think.”_

_“That’s not fair,” Piper said with a small laugh, nudging Josie with her shoulder. “Who’s the reporter here? You answer my questions first.”_

_“No, come on! Come on!” Josie shook her hair back and adopted the look of the old world reporter (it felt so odd that her world was the old world now). “Oh! Oh! Piper Wright,” she said in her best impression of Joan Rivers, someone even before her time, “tell me. You’ve been seen with a man, can you tell us about him?”_

_Piper pulled her knees together and placed a charming index finger on her chin. She fluttered her eyelashes and said, “Well, Josie, if I can be totally candid for a moment, Travis is—”_

_“GYEOW!” the voice on the radio yelled._

_“The sweetest, most charming—”_

_“WHY—DO THESE OBJECTS—KEEP MOVING?!”_

_Piper’s façade was beginning to crack. “—most handsome and cool man in Diamond City.”_

_Travis sighed through their speaker. “Because I_ put _them there. And then I_ forget. _”_

_And with that the both of them collapsed into a fit of giggles over the radio, holding each other for support as they dissolved._

* * *

Piper’s voice was uncharacteristically timid as she stepped into Josie’s room. “Josie?”

Josie was lying on her back in bed, staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded on her stomach. Dogmeat was sleeping at her feet. She didn’t say anything, didn’t move as Piper walked into the room—if it wasn’t for the shallow rise and fall of her chest Piper would have thought her dead.

“She hasn’t moved all day,” Hancock said, startling Piper and making her spin around. He was sitting in a chair with his legs stretched out, ankles over each other, arms crossed. “I’ve started talking about her like she’s not here.”

Piper shrugged out of her jacket. “Good plan, she usually hates that.”

“Yeah, only this time I think she’s actually not here.” He uncrossed his ankles and stood, joints creaking and popping. “I’m gonna go take a nap,” he said, making his way to the stairs. “Keep an eye on her for me, huh?”

Piper nodded and took his seat. Josie still didn’t move. “Well,” Piper said, hoping Josie would see it was her. “How’re ya holding up, Blue?”

Josie blinked.

“Yeah, I get that.” Piper stretched out a little, ever restless. “Everyone’s real worried about you. Preston’s even showing a little emotion. Hancock hasn’t left your side all day. And your dog! He’s been here.” She scratched her scalp. “I got here as soon as I could. Nick’s downstairs. I’m not sure he wants to see you, he doesn’t have the best bedside manner.” A small pause. “Even Deacon got in touch on the ham. He’s headed this way. He—he’s really worried. We all are.” Josie didn’t answer. “Please say something.”

Dogmeat whined in the back of his throat and nudged his head under Josie’s hand, but it just laid there like a slug.

“Okay,” Piper grunted, standing and going to her. “This can’t be healthy. Come on, let’s move around a little bit.”

* * *

_Nick watched as Josie twitched and groaned in the pod, slowly pulled from the memories of someone she didn’t know. Dr. Amari touched his shoulder and nudged her head towards the door. Nick hesitated._

_“The thing about happiness is you only know you had it when it’s gone.”_

_He shook his head. Where had_ that _come from?_

_Hancock was waiting in the doorway, a slow stare blinking through the inky blackness of his sclera._

* * *

“I know she’ll be happy you’re here,” Preston said quietly, absentmindedly kicking his feet against the grass from his seat on the edge of the foundation (or as Josie called it, the ‘porch’). Nick sat beside him, smoking. “I can’t even imagine what she’s going through.”

“Sure you can. Imagine Quincy, only worse.”

Preston visibly shuddered. “Jesus.”

“Those were always the worst jobs,” Nick said, ignoring him. “Going out to get someone back and finding them dead. I always tried to bring some kind of personal effect back. But if I know the Institute, there was nothing left of Shaun. No mementos. Like he disappeared.” Nick inhaled on his cigarette—some smoke trailed out of the jagged rip in his neck. “I feel bad I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Well, why haven’t you?”

“I told you. These are always the worst jobs.”

“But she’s your friend.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here in the first place.” He stubbed out his cigarette and, without another word, stood and made his way inside, past the sleeping Hancock and pacing Curie, and up the stairs. He stopped short on the top step.

Piper had hauled Josie onto the balcony and propped her up to look out at the neighborhood, eyes dull and glassy. Piper was sitting on a stool beside her, watching her like an upset hawk. “She’s still not moving, Nick!”

“Piper—”

“I thought if she got some fresh air, some sunshine…god, that makes her sound like a houseplant.” Piper buried her head in her hands. “I don’t know what to do, Nick.”

And for once, Nick had nothing to say.

* * *

_“And these,” Josie said grandly as she plopped a little puck of food into Danse’s hands, “are Josie’s Famous Mirelurk Cakes!”_

_Danse tested its weight in one of his hands. “Seems more like advanced weaponry to me.”_

_“They’re based on the crab cakes I used to make,” Josie replied, apparently acting like she hadn’t heard him. “Mirelurk’s tough to work with, and I don’t have a food processor or oven, but I think I do a decent job with it.”_

_“This is a puck, soldier.”_

_Josie turned to him, firelight flickering across her face, hope lit bright as the flames. “I hope when all this settles down, I can churn up some butter, make some mayonnaise. Then they’ll really get good!”_

_Danse was about to insult it again, but the anticipative look in her eyes told him that the best course of action would be to just eat it. He stared down at the cake in his gloved hand, wondering how something so small could be so dense. It smelled like the sea, and not in a good way. He glanced back up at Josie—she still looked so excited, damn it—then sighed, swallowed, and took a small bite._

_He spit it out almost instantly. How could something taste burnt and raw at the same time?! It was tough, it was slimy, it was every texture he would never want anywhere near his mouth. The taste, oddly, wasn’t terrible, but the texture was like death. “How can you eat this?!”_

_Josie huffed and crossed her arms, looking away embarrassedly and more than a little angrily. “If you didn’t want to eat it, you didn’t have to, stupid power armor, gross, fucking, hate you. Your hat is stupid. Nerd.”_

_There was a long pause as Danse tried to think of something to say, then, “My hat is not stupid.”_

* * *

From the moment the Vertibird landed just outside Sanctuary to when it lifted back off, having dropped off a solitary figure in power armor, the settlers had their guns trained on it. No one trusted the Brotherhood around here—not even the advancing Paladin Danse, who they’d seen with the general before.

“You got a lot of nerve coming here!” Hancock shouted as soon as Danse crossed the bridge, his own shotgun raised. Strong stood behind him with a board hammered through with cruel, spiked nails. “Turn around, tin can!”

“I was called here,” Danse replied coolly, stopping and instinctively going into parade rest.

“Like hell you were,” Hancock snarled, stepping closer. “Garvey put out a call for Josie’s _friends_ , and the Brotherhood of Steel is _not_ —”

“Fawcett is my initiate, and my friend,” Danse interrupted, feeling his slow temper start to rise. “I come to the call of my brothers and sisters. Put down the gun.”

“Josie not in Brotherhood!” Strong roared.

“There’s no way,” Hancock agreed, but his voice faltered just a little bit. “I mean, look at her friends. You think she’d be—I mean—”

“You clearly don’t know Fawcett as well as you think. Now get the gun out of my face.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“Listen, _zombie_ —”

Hancock screeched and was about to hit him with the butt of his gun when a metal hand shot out from behind him, grabbed his wrist and wrenched it down. “Not your best idea, John,” Nick warned. Preston stood behind him, laser musket at the ready.

“Don’t call me John, ya hunk of junk,” Hancock grumbled, fighting against his grip.

“Oh good, the triad of poor decisions appears,” Danse said with a squint at Nick.

“Everyone here needs to calm down,” Preston said forcefully, inserting himself between Danse and the three species he hated most. At his tone, the settlers lowered their guns as well. “Remember, this is Minuteman turf. You’re not mayor here, Hancock. And you,” he swung to look at Danse more fully, “are not in charge, either. The general is. And while she’s indisposed, I am. So you’ll watch your mouth.”

Danse was silent for a moment, eyes flickering over the four assembled before him, weighing his options. “Understood,” he finally said with a curt nod. The others slowly lowered their weapons and finally something that looked almost human in its concern lowered over the paladin’s face. “You were the one on the radio, right? Is she okay? What happened?”

* * *

_“I don’t know what Curie told you,” Deacon said with a vague gesture at the sky, “but her constellations were totally off.”_

_Josie grinned and shoved him good-naturedly. “Why don’t you teach me about them, then?”_

_“Sure!” He gestured at a vague corner of the sky. “That one’s Cursur Majoris, or the big ship. It’s the ship Analus piloted in the Greek myths. See? There’s the bow.”_

_“Yes, I can see.”_

_“And that one,” he pointed at the other side of the sky, “is Barnacus, the sea pirate. He’s coming after Analus’s ship. Those strings of stars are his beard.”_

_“Is his beard tentacles?”_

_“Of course it is, you need to brush up on your mythology. And that star,” he pointed at Polaris, “is the sun, but really far away.”_

_Josie guffawed, ugly and loud, and shoved him again. “You asshole, you’re full of it.”_

* * *

“Preston.”

“Augh!” Preston shouted, jumping from his seat by the radio, hand clutching his heart. It took his frantic eyes a moment to locate the voice coming from the man outside his window. “Deacon! Don’t—do that.”

“Do what?”

“Sneak up on me like that.” Preston straightened his hat, trying to regain his dignity. “Just use the door.”

“Sorry,” Deacon replied, with no trace of actual remorse as he made his way around to the door. “I got here as quick as I could. Sanctuary seems pretty crowded.”

“I didn’t think about how many friends she had when I sent the call out.”

Deacon’s hands were antsy by his sides. “I’ve been checking the place out for a couple of days,” he said, pacing past Preston and to the opposite wall. “It’s been quiet, way too quiet. Except for the vertiberd landing which,” he turned and walked back, “I’m not happy about, there’s been no movement. Did you stick her back in the Vault?”

“No, she’s in her house.”

“She’s always running around and doing something. She went to the Institute—”

“How do you know that?”

Deacon sighed and raised an exasperated eyebrow at him. “But we know she’s not a synth. That’s what I was waiting on too, all my intel comes back clean. Our inside sources say she’s still human. But why is she being so weird?”

“Grief does that to a person,” Preston said quietly, his tone stopping Deacon’s pace. “Her son…Deacon.”

“Oh no,” he groaned, running a hand over his head as the light across the way clicked off.

* * *

_“So you just—” MacCready whispered into her ear, “take a breath.”_

_“I am.”_

_“Take a big one.” His arms were around her, warm and firm, his breath licking her auricle. “Stay focused.”_

_“I am.”_

_“I know.” His chest was hard against her back. “Now just squeeze.”_

_The ricochet of the rifle slammed them both back, but not so much that it distracted Josie from scrambling to the rooftop’s edge to watch the bullet whiz through the air and lodge itself into a raider’s head from a mile away, blasting it into a big bloody mess. Josie whooped and whirled a fist in the air. “DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT?!”_

_“Josie….”_

_“DID YOU SEE?!”_

_“Yes, Josie, but—”_

_“I EXPLODED HIM FROM A MILE AWAY!”_

_“And,” MacCready said with a small laugh as the telltale moans started, reloading his gun, “you completely gave away our position.”_

* * *

MacCready showed up on the doorstep soaking wet with water and blood, clutching his side with a wrapped hand. “Hey,” he said, no further introduction, stepping into the shack and ignoring the stares. “She okay?”

“MacCready?” Hancock demanded. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You listen to the radio message, Mr. Mayor? I was included.”

“You’re bleeding, Monsieur,” Curie murmured, drawing MacCready’s arm into her hands and seating him at the kitchen table. She fussed around, finding Stimpaks and Med-X. “You are Monsieur MacCready?”

“Yeah, and all that French, you gotta be Curie,” he replied with a tired smile, shrugging off his coat, his words punctuated by water dripping to the floor and the vague creak of floorboards above. His eyes scanned the ceiling. “She up there?”

“Oui, Monsieur Nick is with her currently. Would you remove your shirt?”

“Sure.” He began unbuttoning. “Caught a bullet in the side near the Red Rocket. Fucking raiders. What happened to Josie?”

Curie sighed. “Her son, he is…dead.”

Seemingly without thought, without notice, MacCready’s hands stilled, his whole body stilled and his eyes locked onto the top of the stairs like a magnet. “Oh no,” he breathed as Curie went to continue his hand’s work. “Oh no. Oh no.”

* * *

_“Oh yeah!” Cait screamed, watching the last gunner’s head smack against the concrete wall, blood and brains oozing from the splatter. “Who’s next?! C’mon, I have all day!”_

_Josie was laughing, picking over the bodies. “Jesus, Cait! I thought you’d be less violent!”_

_“Wha’, cause you got me cleaned up?” Cait laughed as well, swinging her shotgun onto her shoulder, all wild hair and beating heart. “Not a chance, Jos.”_

_“Ammo,” Josie replied, tossing a box of shells to her. “Do you feel better?”_

_“Aye.” She swooped down, hugged Josie briefly, releasing her almost as soon as her arms encircled her. “Better than in a long time.”_

_“Aww, you big softie!”_

_“Call me tha’ again and it’ll be yer head!”_

* * *

“Oi!” Cait’s voice ripped through Preston’s house like a shotgun shell, its tone completely at odds with the house’s welcome warmth. “Why’m I always the last to feckin’ hear about things?!”

“Glad to see you, Cait,” Deacon casually replied from the shadows, pleased at how she jumped and screeched just a little bit. He’d been waiting there for an hour. “How ya doing?”

Cait stomped in, finger raised the whole way to wag under Deacon’s nose. “Don’t gimme any of tha’ nonsense, Deacon. Where is she? Is she hurt?”

“She’s at her house. I think Danse is watching her right now. The question is—”

She jerked back. “Danse? Who tha’ feck is Danse?”

“He’s a Brotherhood guy, which, lemme tell ya, I’m not thrilled about.” Deacon folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “The question is, why are you here?”

Cait froze, then narrowed her eyes, her expression twisting. “What do you mean, why am I here?”

“I never got the impression junkies had a ton of loyalty.”

“Listen here, bald cap,” Cait snarled, barely restraining herself from ramming him into the wall, “Josie is my best friend in the entire universe, she’s helped me out of more scrapes than you’d ever thought possible, and if she’s hurt—”

“You’re not high.”

“Excuse me?!”

“You’re not high,” Deacon repeated, eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses. “I can tell. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not high.”

Cait deflated, just a little. “Josie helped.”

“Yeah, she’s good for that.” He abruptly leaned forward, grabbed her in his arms. “I’m glad you’re doing better.”

“Deacon,” she murmured, her voice gone soft. “You know we can’t be this again.”

“No, I know. Still.” Deacon smiled his little half-smile and sat back down, patting the couch next to him. “Okay, so here’s what happened….”

* * *

_Hancock leaned into her in a Goodneighbor alleyway, one forearm on the wall next to her head, the other in his pocket, fiddling with a bottle of Buffout. “Josie.”_

_She loved it when he said her name, just her name, and she hated that she loved it. “I can’t stop loving him, Hancock.”_

_“I’m not asking you to.”_

_“I know, I just…Hancock.” She reached up to his face, pressing her palms there, running her fingers over the divots in his cheekbones. “I’m 28 and I’m a widow. He’s only been gone for four months, and soon I’ll have Shaun back…I don’t want to forget him.”_

_“I don’t want you to, either.” He released the bottle and reached up to touch her hand, wrap his around it, lace their fingers. “Guy like that, I’m not him. I can’t be Nate, and he loved you in one way, and I’ll love you in another. Josie,” he murmured, drawing her fingers to his mouth and kissing their tips. “I just want to be part of this.”_

_“God,” she breathed, and when she kissed him it was like she was melting._

* * *

“Talk me through it.”

Josie didn’t reply, but Hancock inched his chair forward, leaning onto his knees with his elbows, chin balanced on folded hands. “Josie. I know you’re there.” No response. “Tell me what happened. I’m not gonna do anything, I won’t even respond. Just—talk to me.” His voice cracked, he hadn’t drank any water in a while. “Please.”

She opened and closer her mouth once, then whispered, “It’s over.”

It was the first words she’d said in days, and Hancock barely blinked when she said them. “Hey.”

“It’s over,” Josie repeated. She wasn’t moving, still, just lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. But she _was_ talking. “The quest. The grand…grandiose reasoning. The whole….” She lapsed back into silence.

“I never did have a quest, but that never stopped me from being grandiose,” Hancock replied with a small smile. She didn’t return it, and it dropped off his face. “Go on.”

You could hear the sound of the generator in the background, a quiet hum overwritten with the gentle lilt of Curie’s murmurings to Codsworth, Strong’s snores in the grass. “He’s not dead.” She paused, maybe waiting for him to say something. “Shaun. He—they took him. Raised him. Made him their leader.” Her thoughts were still jumbled, time was a big soup. “He’s sixty. More than sixty. They took him more than sixty years ago. Then they re-froze me. Then they un-froze me. Then they killed my husband, then the world ended…no.” Tears had begun seeping out of her again, with no screwed face, hushed noises—they simply were. “I’m….”

“What can I do?”

“No,” she whispered, and that was when her face scrunched and she began hiccupping, struggling to not convulse. “I told him I couldn’t be part of what they were doing. And he told me—that I was his enemy. That he and I—I couldn’t be. That. Everything’s gone, John, everything’s gone.” She moved her hands to cover her eyes, press deep until she could see stars. “He’s dead, because I’m dead. Because that person, that man—is not the Shaun I could have raised. I could have _raised_ him, we could have, we—but it’s all gone now. It’s all gone.”

“Josie.”

“They killed Nate, and they took my boy, they stole my time and the memories I had there, those memories were _mine_ and now I don’t get them! I get—they took my years and they poured me into a body that doesn’t feel like mine, and they told me, look, your son is old and your husband is dead, but you get a second chance. But it’s not a second chance. It’s a first chance that got confused. I shouldn’t be this. I’m like a…a collage, they cut me out of my magazine and pasted me somewhere I shouldn’t exist.”

Hancock slipped to the floor, kneeling beside her. “But you do.”

“I don’t want to exist anymore.” She was trembling now, struggling to keep her body in one piece. “Put me back in the cold, please, I don’t want to be here.”

“Josie,” Hancock murmured, taking one of her hands and folding it into his, lacing the fingers together and holding tight.

“Hancock, please—”

“Josie.”

She turned her face to look at him and he caught her gaze only for a second, so quickly were her eyes darting, struggling. “I don’t want to exist. I can’t get warm, John, no matter how much I try I just start shivering again.” And she was, deep shudders wracking her body up and down like electricity. Dogmeat was whimpering.

Hancock reached around, fumbled until he found her blanket on the ground and clumsily draped it over her, all with one hand so he wouldn’t have to let hers go. “You can’t torture yourself.”

“Give me some Jet, Hancock, let me bliss out—”

“No. Not…like this.” Hancock went silent for a moment, studying her, then finally stood, disentangling his hand. “Can I lie with you?”

“John—”

“I’m not coming on to you. I’m trying to help you.”

Josie hesitated, but nodded, let him crawl in beside her and hold her so tight she felt like he was trying to grant her wish.

* * *

_They each had some kind of platitude to say when they handed Josie off to another companion. Sometimes nice, sometimes not so nice. But always something._

_“You know what I want more than anything in the world?” Josie said once._

_“What?” someone replied; she couldn’t remember who._

_“I want to find my son, and I want to have breakfast with him and my friends here. I want you all to sit around the table together, and I want to eat with the people I love.” She folded her hands behind her head, stretching and smiling. “That’s what I want.”_

* * *

Hancock had his arm around her waist at the top of the stairs, Dogmeat dancing at their heels. “You ready?” he asked, voice sandpaper and soft.

Josie swallowed. “Yeah.” Her voice sounded much the same.

Hancock kissed her temple and began guiding her down.

Before they even got halfway, they could hear the argument. “No, that’s not what we’re doing!”

“Well you’re a little late, Piper,” Preston said, clearly annoyed. “I’ve already made enough for everyone, what do you expect me to do?”

“Make something else! You _know_ Strong doesn’t like pancakes.”

“Strong eats his own food, he won’t care what we eat!”

“Easy,” Hancock murmured, tightening his grip. Josie hadn’t realized she’d been slipping, her body drawn of its own volition towards the voices.

As soon as they heard him, Piper and Preston were up in an instant, running to her side. She saw Codsworth floating by the stove. “Blue!”

“General!”

“You’re up!”

“You’re awake!”

“How are you?”

“Okay,” Josie replied, her voice shaking and tears springing to the corners of her eyes. “Been better.”

They both took a hand of hers and led her down. “See, Piper, I told you she’d be up today.”

“You got me there, Preston.”

“I see Sleeping Beauty’s up,” Nick snarked from his seat at the table. MacCready was silent next to him, watching her carefully. “How ya holding up?”

Josie took her seat next to him. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine,” MacCready murmured.

“Tired?” Deacon demanded as he walked in, trailed by Cait. Strong stood outside near the window, watching the scene with boredom. “How can you be tired? Haven’t you been asleep for three days? Josie’s up, guys!”

“Gave us quite the scare,” Cait scolded, mussing Josie’s hair. “An’ it takes a lot to scare me!”

“It doesn’t take much to scare me,” Codsworth added with a small chuckle. “Glad to see you up and about, Mum.”

“I’m sorry, Codsworth,” Josie whispered.

“Not to worry, Mum.”

Curie ran into the shack and, without a word, fell to her knees and embraced Josie’s middle. “Madame, I was so frightened.”

“Curie, I’m okay.”

“I do not know what I would do without you!”

“C’mon, Curie, give her some space,” Hancock said with a small laugh, pulling Curie up and letting her collect herself.

“Well, we made breakfast!” Preston said, proudly indicating the massive stack of pancakes on the stove. “So why don’t we…just….”

His words trailed off as finally, sans power armor, Paladin Danse stepped in. In fact, the whole room had gone silent as he awkwardly fiddled with the hood in his hands. “Uh…soldier,” he began, nodding to Josie and avoiding everyone else’s eyes. “I’ve told the elder that you’ll need some time to recuperate. But he’ll want to see you. Um. As soon as you can.” He pounded his fist against his chest. “Ad Victorium, knight.” He turned and began walking out the door.

“Stop!” Josie shouted, the word cut through the air like an arrow. Instantly, Paladin Danse spun around, instinctively going into parade rest. Everyone looked from Josie to Danse and back, how confused he looked, how her hand desperately reached out. “Stay. Please.”

Hancock leaned down and asked, “Why?”

“Breakfast,” Josie replied quietly, looking at him, then Danse. “I want to have breakfast. With my family.” The tears that had pricked her eyes resurged, but she blinked them back. “Please. That’s all I want.”

“Josie,” Hancock murmured, bending to grab her in his arms. And this time, for the first time in days, she didn’t want to die when her friends came to her and more and more arms held her so tight she felt like crying.


End file.
